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Full-Text Articles in Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics

More Meaningful Ethics, Veronica Root Martinez Jan 2020

More Meaningful Ethics, Veronica Root Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

Firms have exponentially increased their investment in the creation and implementation of ethics and compliance programs over the past fifteen years. The convergence of more robust corporate enforcement actions and more sophisticated industry standards and practices surrounding compliance efforts has created a booming compliance industry with commonly accepted standards and responsibilities. Within these efforts is a formal acknowledgment by the government, industry leaders, and academics that ethics has a role to play in helping to prevent misconduct within firms and that compliance without concern for ethics is insufficient. The reality, however, is that within firms’ efforts to implement effective ethics …


Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunnelling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang Sep 2018

Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunnelling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this article, we examine a general question: is the legal transplantation of corporate governance rule effective in curtailing agency costs? Entering into the 21st century, we have seen reforms of corporate governance standards in the Far East since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, including in Hong Kong and Singapore. These reforms built on the Anglo-American model of corporate governance in the UK and US supported by broad academic literature of connecting better corporate governance with firm value and identifying the association of tunneling or wrongdoings with poor corporate governance practices. The idea is also to provide more checks-and-balances …


Criminally Bad Management, Samuel W. Buell Jan 2018

Criminally Bad Management, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Because of their leverage over employees, corporate managers are prime targets for incentives to control corporate crime, even when managers do not themselves commit crimes. Moreover, the collective actions of corporate management — producing what is sometimes referred to as corporate culture — can be the cause of corporate crime, not just a locus of the failure to control it. Because civil liability and private compensation arrangements have limited effects on management behavior — and because the problem is, after all, crime — criminal law is often expected to intervene. This handbook chapter offers a functional explanation for corporate criminal …


Social Capital Of Directors And Corporate Governance: A Social Network Analysis, Zihan Niu, Christopher C. H. Chen Jul 2017

Social Capital Of Directors And Corporate Governance: A Social Network Analysis, Zihan Niu, Christopher C. H. Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Article examines how a director’s social capital might affect his or her behavior, the board’s performance, and corporate governance, as well as the potential normative implications of the director’s social network. We argue that the quality of board performance could be improved where the social network closure within the board is high and there are many non-redundant contacts beyond the board. Network closure can improve trust and collaboration within a board, while external contacts may benefit a company with more diverse sources of information. Moreover, different network positioning leads to the inequality of social capital for directors. With more …


The Responsibility Gap In Corporate Crime, Samuel W. Buell Jan 2017

The Responsibility Gap In Corporate Crime, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

In many cases of criminality within large corporations, senior management does not commit the operative offense — or conspire or assist in it — but nonetheless bears serious responsibility for the crime. That responsibility can derive from, among other things, management’s role in cultivating corporate culture, in failing to police effectively within the firm, and in accepting lavish compensation for taking the firm’s reins. Criminal law does not include any doctrinal means for transposing that form of responsibility into punishment. Arguments for expanding doctrine — including broadening of the presently narrow “responsible corporate officer” doctrine — so as to authorize …


Solving The Puzzle Of Corporate Governance Of State-Owned Enterprises: The Path Of Temasek Model In Singapore And Lessons For China, Christopher C. H. Chen Apr 2016

Solving The Puzzle Of Corporate Governance Of State-Owned Enterprises: The Path Of Temasek Model In Singapore And Lessons For China, Christopher C. H. Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The purpose of this Article is to examine the corporate governance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the Asian context by empirically surveying the influence of Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, on its portfolio of government-linked companies in Singapore. Overall, the Temasek model seems to be a promising one. This Article shows that the top listed government-linked companies in which Temasek has a stake have greater board independence than the other top listed companies in Singapore. This illustrates that a high quality of corporate governance could be aligned with public interests associated with SOEs. While this research offers hope for …


Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root Jan 2016

Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root

Faculty Scholarship

When a sexual abuse scandal rocked Penn State, when Apple was found to have engaged in anticompetitive behavior, and when servicers like Bank of America improperly foreclosed upon hundreds of thousands of homeowners, each organization entered into a "Modern-Day Monitorship”. Modern-day monitorships are utilized in an array of contexts to assist in widely varying re­mediation efforts. This is because they provide outsiders with a unique source of information about the efficacy of the tarnished organization's efforts to resolve misconduct. Yet, despite their use in high profile and serious matters of organi­zational wrongdoing, they are not an outgrowth of careful study …


Stewardship In The Interests Of Systemic Stakeholders: Re-Conceptualizing The Means And Ends Of Anglo-American Corporate Governance In The Wake Of The Global Financial Crisis, Zhong Xing Tan Jan 2014

Stewardship In The Interests Of Systemic Stakeholders: Re-Conceptualizing The Means And Ends Of Anglo-American Corporate Governance In The Wake Of The Global Financial Crisis, Zhong Xing Tan

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.


Corporate Governance And The New Trend Of Directors In Company Law In Other Countries, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen, Shuaisheng Huang May 2012

Corporate Governance And The New Trend Of Directors In Company Law In Other Countries, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen, Shuaisheng Huang

Christopher Chao-hung Chen

No abstract provided.


Foreword: In Berle’S Footsteps, Charles R.T. O'Kelley Jan 2010

Foreword: In Berle’S Footsteps, Charles R.T. O'Kelley

Seattle University Law Review

On the weekend of November 6–8, 2009, scholars from around the world gathered in Seattle for a symposium—In Berle’s Footsteps—celebrating the launch of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. As founding director of the Berle Center, I described our undertaking: “It is with a profound sense of obligation to the legacy that has been entrusted to my care, that I announce the launching of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. It is a privilege to follow in Berle’s footsteps.”


Opening Remarks, Chancellor William B. Chandler Iii Jan 2010

Opening Remarks, Chancellor William B. Chandler Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Law is, in many ways, a backwards-looking field. We litigate over facts that have already occurred, challenge deals that have already been signed, and apply rules of decision based on previously-established precedent or statutes already enacted. To the extent that this Center and the symposium reflect on Berle’s work, they too are an exercise in looking back. Indeed, some might say the establishment of a Center named in Berle’s honor is a monument to the past.


The Birth Of Corporate Governance, Harwell Wells Jan 2010

The Birth Of Corporate Governance, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Article briefly examines the concept of “corporate governance” and argues for dating the concept’s origins to the debates of the 1920s. Part II then moves on to examine early scholarly and popular discussions of the separation of ownership and control. After surveying the historical developments that produced the recognizably modern corporate economy around the turn of the century, it examines early scholarly and popular discussions of the separation of ownership and control, focusing on three major thinkers, Louis D. Brandeis, Walter Lippmann, and Thorstein Veblen. It argues that, while each of these authors examined the separation …


Corporate Power In The Public Eye: Reassessing The Implications Of Berle’S Public Consensus Theory, Marc T. Moore, Antoine Rebérioux Jan 2010

Corporate Power In The Public Eye: Reassessing The Implications Of Berle’S Public Consensus Theory, Marc T. Moore, Antoine Rebérioux

Seattle University Law Review

We analyze Berle’s overall corporate governance project in accordance with what we see as its four core sub-themes: (A) the limitations of external market forces as a constraint on managerial decision-making power; (B) the desirability of internal (corporate) over external (market) actors in allocating corporate capital; (C) civil society and the public consensus as a continuous informal check on managerial decision-making power; and (D) shareholder democracy (as opposed to shareholder primacy or shareholder wealth maximization) as a socially instrumental institution. We seek to debunk the popular misconception that Berle’s early work was a defense of the orthodox shareholder primacy paradigm …